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Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, has a net worth of $15.5 billion.
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The Russian-born tech magnate fled Moscow 10 years ago and now lives in Dubai.
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French police have arrested Durov as part of an investigation into criminal activity by Telegram users.
Pavel Durov is the founder and owner of the messaging app Telegram.
According to Forbes, Durov, born in St. Petersburg in the Soviet Union, is worth $15.5 billion.
The tech entrepreneur founded the encrypted messaging service Telegram in 2013 with his brother Nikolai. The brothers came from an intellectual family, according to the Digital-Life-Design Conference website. Durov spoke at the conference in January 2012.
Much of Durov's wealth comes from Telegram, which has 950 million active users and is valued at over $30 billion.
Before founding Telegram, Durov founded the Russian social network Vkontakte.
Durov founded the network in 2006 and sold a 12% stake for $300 million in 2015.
The site brought him fame: he became known as Russia's "biggest celebrity entrepreneur," according to The New York Times. But it also brought political trouble when Durov refused Kremlin demands for access to Vkontakte data on Ukrainian protest leaders.
Durov said he was fired from his post as CEO of Vkontakte in April 2014 when state-backed entities tried to control the network, Reuters reported. The Mail.Ru group, owned by oligarch Alisher Usmanov, bought the network later that year for $1.47 billion.
Usmanov's press service told Business Insider that the group sold Vkontakte, which is now owned by the state insurer Sogaz.
Durov told the Times that he was forced to leave Moscow in 2014 after a SWAT team showed up at his home.
Durov's conflicts with the Kremlin did not end with Vkontakte.
In 2018, Telegram was banned in Russia after Durov denied the Kremlin access to user data. Hundreds of people protested in response to the ban, some holding signs depicting Durov as a saint (pictured above). The app was reinstated in Russia two years later.
Today, Telegram plays an important role in the war in Ukraine.
Durov promised to protect the data of Ukrainian users in a Telegram message in March 2022. Durov is of partial Ukrainian descent, the message said.
"When I challenged it [the Kremlin's] demands, the stakes were high for me personally," Durov wrote. "I stand by our users no matter what. Their right to privacy is sacrosanct."
Durov also launched a cryptocurrency wallet in 2002, called Fragment. Durov said it took "only 5 weeks and 5 people, including myself, to put the wallet together."
According to Durov, less than a month after Fragment's launch, about $50 million worth of usernames were purchased.
Durov now lives in Dubai, where Telegram's operations are based.
Durov moved to Dubai in 2017, shifting Telegram's operations to an office in Dubai's Media City, Bloomberg reported. The network was previously based in Berlin.
In a December 2017 interview with Bloomberg, Durov said his move to Dubai gave him "better ways to [his] money that benefits society', as the city has no income tax.
According to the Russian edition of Forbes, Durov obtained citizenship of the United Arab Emirates in February 2021 and became a naturalized French citizen in August 2021.
In January 2018, Durov wrote on Twitter that it is "unlikely that Telegram will ever have a location like [its] permanent basis."
Durov is active on social media.
In August 2017, Durov's Instagram post parodying Russian President Vladimir Putin went viral.
Durov posted a message on Instagram, aptly titled the "Putin Shirtless Challenge," calling on users to post photos of themselves exposing their upper bodies, Putin-style.
"Two rules from Putin - no photoshop, no pumps. Otherwise you're not an alpha," Durov wrote in the post in August 2017. More than 3,000 posts with Durov's hashtag were uploaded to Instagram.
Despite having 2.5 million followers on X, Durov doesn't follow anyone except Elon Musk.
Although not much is known about Durov's assets, he occasionally shares a photo of a yacht on Instagram.
Durov shared a photo from the deck of a Lurssen yacht off the coast of Italy in 2016.
The cost of a Lurssen yacht starts at around $1 million and can go up to $185 million, according to Yacht World. Durov never confirmed whether he owned the Lurssen yacht pictured.
Durov said in an August 2016 Instagram post that while he was not a "fan of the giant Lurssen yachts," he did like the manufacturer's sailing ship.
Durov posted another photo of a superyacht on Instagram in 2015. And in another 2022 post on his official Telegram account, Durov claimed that he doesn't own any private jets, yachts, cars or homes, adding that he's "different from most billionaires."
Durov's profile was already found on Tinder in 2017.
Bloomberg reported that Durov was "half-naked" in his profile photo on the dating app.
"I'm not looking for anything serious or not serious here," he wrote on his profile, according to Bloomberg. "I'm just playing around with the app."
According to Russia Beyond, Durov was once married to Daria Bondarenko, whom he met at university. The magazine cites a documentary about Durov by filmmaker Rodion Chepel.
Durov once said that Silicon Valley has a "limited cultural life."
Durov wrote in response to journalist and YouTuber Yury Dud's film about Silicon Valley. The film has been viewed 52 million times on YouTube.
In the post, Durov listed seven reasons why he didn't want to move to Silicon Valley.
"The US is not the best place to live or run an IT company," Durov wrote. "Local programmers are expensive, spoiled, and often can't concentrate on their work because of the flow of suggestions and ideas from outside."
Durov also described the United States as a "police state" and said he attacked in June 2015 in San Francisco by thieves who wanted to steal his phone.
Durov is committed to keeping Telegram safe for all its users, regardless of who they are or what they do.
Telegram is the "app of choice" for terror networks like ISIS, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute. But Durov has so far refused to restrict access to the app or moderate its content to deter any particular group.
"We can't make messaging technology safe for everyone except terrorists," Durov said in a February 2016 interview with CNN. "It's either safe or it's not safe."
Durov is also a kind of instigator in his personal stories.
For example, when the Russian state called for a ban on Vkontakte in 2014, Durov responded by posting a photo of a dog in a hoodie on Twitter.
When Vkontakte was accused of hosting pornography, he changed his Twitter handle from "VK CEO" to "Porn King," according to The Calvert Journal. And in 2017, he shared his passport photo on Twitter, writing that it was "oddly appropriate for media articles about terrorists using Telegram."
French police arrested Durov in 2024 during an investigation into Telegram.
French authorities arrested Durov on August 24, 2024, near Paris during an investigation into criminal activity on Telegram. Police arrested Durov at Le Bourget airport as he attempted to leave on his private jet.
According to an arrest warrant, Telegram was used for money laundering, drug trafficking and crimes against minors, among other things, the Associated Press news agency reported.
Elon Musk, the owner of X who also opposes content moderation, called the incident evidence of "dangerous times."
Read the original article on Business Insider